Breaking My Ties To Racism - A Psychedelic Journey To Wholeness with Akua Ofosuhene / Women in Psychedelics Series

Akua Ofosuhene explores how we can be intentional with psychedelics to cure the racist divide in ourselves and community. We aim to move from ‘victimhood as identity and allyship as righteousness’ (Bayo Akomolafe) to freedom. We will look at what medicines we should think about using, set and setting and looking at how and why can psychedelics end racism?

Human beings are metaphysical, creative, spiritual beings in a reality that seems upside down at times. A reality is governed by a class-based pyramidal extractive economic structure that places race at each layer and makes racism the glue that keeps it all together. Society through institutions and violence maintain our present divisive world order through its control of the ten areas of life. These divisions in society appear to be a reflection of a divide in the human psyche.  

Through the centuries, people have joined groups and organizations to fight the division. On a case by case analysis, they appear to have achieved many successes. Still, closer examination always shows the pyramidal extractive economic structure born out of division remains the same, never changed.

Could we have been looking at, interpreting our experiences in a way that maintains the divisive reality? What is it that needs changing? What and whose behaviours need altering? If my happiness can only come from how I think about myself, could this be true for our whole community?

Psychedelic plants and compounds offer altered states of consciousness that often take us from division to wholeness in an instant. These experiences have been so valuable to human existence that there aren't people without some kind of altered state of consciousness practice in its culture. 

In Gabon and Cameroon, the Bwiti have always used Iboga to heal the individual and the community. Akua’s grandfather was a traditional animist priest, and her aunt was a Christian healer. They both used practices that engendered altered states to travel to other dimensions and realms to retrieve answers and insights to cure the individual, and often the cure would include the extended family and sometimes the whole village.This indigenous holistic approach to inquiry and cure is what Akua proposes that we take to the problem of racism. Racism is the outward expression of inner division in us reflected in our society. 

SPEAKER

Akua Ofosuhene

Akua Ofosuhene is a speaker, radio host, filmmaker, psychedelic designer, and a co-founder of Hub and Culture an African and Caribbean cooperative lifestyle shop and event space in Peckham. She is an advocate of individual therapeutic uses of psychedelics to combat depression, illness and white supremacy racism. 

Akua has produced, directed and shot documentary films in Europe and West Africa, including the commemoration of the life of filmmaker Ousmane Sembene for Aljazeera TV. She directed ‘Keep Her’ a short drama that won the 2nd best newcomer award at the Images of Black women Film Festival. She also created the Film London funded ‘Closing the Gap’ project which takes positive films about African life into UK schools.

After a few years making corporate and community documentaries, she produced, directed and shot Yaa Asantewaa & the Golden Stool documentary - a story of the Asante / Ashanti warrior queen Yaa Asantewaa I and the last war between the Asante and the British in 1900. During the making of the documentary she came across Shaman Anokye, the co creator of the Asante /

Ashanti peoples. This was the start of Akua’s interest in Shamanism, plant medicines and psychedelics.

In 2015 Akua returned to the UK from Ghana, to help look after her mother who was suffering from a degenerative illness. This has led her to a deeper exploration of plant medicines, and alternative therapies.

She believes that we can change our current unjust world through the use of psychedelics with the simple intention to let go of all deeply held beliefs that prop up our current white supremacist world order.

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